The City Of Lights

Have you ever read an article about a parent who lost their child, and wondered… How? How do they get up every morning? How do they continue living their life? I have. I used to. But I don’t have to wonder about that anymore. I know the answer now. And the answer is that I don’t, not really anyway. My body gets up and does all the work it needs to do: it eats, it dresses up, it goes out. But not my mind, my mind stays in bed, wondering if the pain will ever stop. I cannot even think about living my old life. Not without them. And people keep telling me how sorry they are and that they know how horrible it is to lose someone you love. But everyone who lost their loved ones the way I did, knows that this isn’t the same. Losing a parent or a brother who dies of old age is not like losing your child who didn’t even start living their life yet and who just isn’t supposed to die before you do. It’s just not the same thing.

I remember it so well, how it happened. I don’t think I’ll ever forget to be honest. I haven’t talked about it though, not with anyone. And I don’t think I will ever be able to. But the group says I have to write it all down. And not just in a few words, but the entire story, the details too.
So, for the group, and for myself: this is the story of how death took my family away from me.

It all started when we went on a holiday to Paris. It was beautiful weather and we were singing along with songs on the radio. I listened to my daughter and wife singing together.
My wife, Leila, had been a good singer ever since we met, it’s actually how I fell in love with her. She had this soft, but beautiful voice and it just gave me goose bumps every time I was listening to her. My daughter Rayen, who was only thirteen years old, also had a beautiful voice. She had her own band, back at home. I really enjoyed listening to them, but it was nothing compared to the musical words I heard in the car to Paris. The two women I loved more than anything in the world singing together, I remember it so well.
The closer we got to Paris, the more excited my daughter got. At a certain point, when we were almost at our destination, she nearly jumped out of the backseat shouting: “Dad! Dad it’s the Eiffel tower! Look dad look! It’s soo big! I can see it from here!” I laughed “calm down,” I said with a small hint of excitement, “In half an hour we’ll be arriving in the city of love and then you’ll get to see the Eiffel tower from up close.”
“It’s not called the city of love, we’re not going to Rome. It’s the city of lights.” it was my wife who said this. She always corrected me when I called Paris the city of love. I still don’t really know the official name for it, but it’s not that important anymore anyway.
Suddenly we heard this soft sleepy voice coming from behind us. It was my 8 year old son asking if we had arrived in Paris already. “Already?!” I answered surprised, “I’ve been driving for 12 hours, I think a yet would have a better place in that sentence.” I looked at my son through the rear-view mirror and saw him looking a bit shocked. “Twelve hours?!” he said unbelievably. “Yes Daniel, twelve hours. Have you been sleeping since we left Edinburgh?” I answered a bit teasingly. “Of course not!” he answered mid-yawn, “Men do not sleep in cars.”
“Good thing you’re not a man yet than, Danny.” my wife responded laughing “because you have been sleeping in the car for a very long time.” I laughed too, I couldn’t help myself. Poor Danny, we were always teasing him, but he knew we weren’t being mean. He even did the same to us, he always called me old man and my wife point nose. It was our way of talking to each other, as a close family, a normal one.

Back then, I could never have guessed that it was Paris who would destroy all of this for us. All I could think about then was what a beautiful city we had arrived in. The old houses, the people, everything was beautiful there.
We were staying in one of the many old buildings, it was very tall and located in a narrow alley near the city centre. The balconies were decorated with pink flowers and we could smell croissants as a man holding a bag of them walked past us. Everything about it said ‘France’. 
After we got our keys, unpacked our bags and had a discussion about where we would go first thing in the morning, we went to bed so we would have enough energy for the next day. After turning off the lights and saying good night, Rayen said “Dad? Will you get fresh croissants tomorrow, since we don’t have a breakfast at the hotel?” I sighed, I didn’t want to think about getting up earlier tomorrow to get croissants, “Of course I will darling. We’ll have a real French breakfast in the city of love.” “Yay! Thank you daddy!” it was Danny who said this. “Now go sleep, we’ve got an exhausting day tomorrow.” I closed my eyes again and before I fell asleep I heard a soft voice next to me whisper “The city of lights.”

The next morning I got up early, I was tired but didn’t want to let the children down. So, I got dressed and went down to the reception to ask where the nearest bakery was. The lady at the reception was very kind, she pointed out two bakeries, because the closest one opened whenever the owner felt like opening the bakery, which meant that it might be closed today. I thanked her for her help and got on my way to the bakery.
It took me about ten minutes to get to the closest bakery, it wasn’t hard to find at all. But as the lady predicted, the bakery was closed and funnily enough, I didn’t mind at all. Paris was lovely in the morning! I remember thinking, “tomorrow I’ll ask Rae to come with me.” I knew she would love it. She, like me, enjoys the sunny mornings in the open air. I could hardly have known that there wasn’t going to be any tomorrow for Rayen.
The second bakery turned out to be a bit further than I initially expected. It took me about half an hour to get there, but my reward was the smell of fresh croissants and an old-fashioned English newspaper in my hands.
On my way back I listened to the city’s background noises, the cars, the sirens, the people talking. It was only a few streets from the hotel that I could smell something burning.  I had already seen a fire truck, but I didn’t think it was going to go this close to our hotel. The last meters of my walk, I started running. Scary thoughts started crossing my mind. I was trying to convince myself that it was nothing, that I was just being stupid. But when I arrived in the alley, I saw it. In our hotel. A huge fire.
Time stopped for a moment. I think I stood there, watching from a distance for a couple of seconds, before I realised that my family was still in there. At that moment, I dropped everything I had and ran towards the hotel. I imagined them screaming for my help, burning. I wanted to go inside, I wanted to save them, but someone grabbed my arm. “LEILA!” I shouted from the top of my lungs. “LEILA!” I was trying to get inside, I was trying to get the men holding me back off of me, but I wasn’t strong enough. I was never strong enough.  Someone knocked me down before I could get inside. My head hit the ground and the last thing I saw were flames bursting out of our room. The picture of my wife and kids burning to death in my head.

Alec put down the pen and walked away from the table with tears in his eyes.

5 years later
A lot has happened since Alec lost his wife and children. A couple of months after the funeral, he became a mess. He tried to forget their death, tried to focus on something else. He spent an awful lot of time in his work and drank too much alcohol. He lived like this for about 5 years, until a few days ago.
He was sitting alone in a bar, thinking about what Danny would have looked like at his graduation, with his mom and big sister, when suddenly someone waved her hand in front of his face. “Hellow, can you hear me?” the woman had already said hello twice. “What?!” Alec said, annoyed that she interrupted his thoughts. But when he looked at her, he saw Leila. She had the same sparkle in her eyes, he had seen when he first met his wife. But it wasn’t Leila, Leila was gone. And without saying anything else, he walked away.
Two days later, Alec was sitting outside on a bench, when someone appeared in front of him. “Felt a bit grumpy last time, did we?” the woman said smiling. Alec looked at her for a while and he didn’t know what came over him, but he suddenly asked: “Do you mind if I tell you a story?” The woman sat down next to him, she could sense that it was going to be a serious story, his story. She shook her head, “I don’t mind.” She said quietly.

Alec took a deep breath and said “A few years ago I went on a holiday with my wife and kids to Paris. The famous city of love. We-” He wanted to continue talking, but the strangely familiar woman interrupted him and said: “The city of lights.”